


after all this time

by orphan_account



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions, Pocket Monsters: Black 2 & White 2 | Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 Versions
Genre: F/M, FerrisWheelShipping, Hilda finally found N, That God Damn Ferris Wheel, its been years but this ship still makes my heart ache, its kinda long though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12614344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's been years since Hilda started searching for him, only to find him in the place where everything began."I love Ferris wheels. The circular motion… The mechanics… They're like collections of elegant formulas," he turned to look at her, and all those years of searching suddenly melted away when his lips turned up into a grin. "Maybe I've always known they'd lead me back to you."





	after all this time

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. Shit. This is the first not-reader-insert I've written for the Pokemon tag and HONESTLY it almost turned into one, since the protagonist and the reader are basically one person anyway. But I couldnt really feel ferriswheelshipping as a reader-insert, so instead, i turned it into this. Anyways, happy reading!

There was a time when she got tired -when the flicker of hope almost died out.

Her mother unceasingly contacted her through her Xtransceiver for the first few months of her search (who wouldn't be worried about their fourteen year-old traversing every region she can set foot on just to search for a green-eyed ghost?) But the barrage of calls eventually ceased when she finally came to terms with the fact that her daughter will not come home until she found what her heart desperately longed for. 

However, on one drunken December night, her Xtransceiver, that's been dormant for nearly two years, began ringing once more. _How rude_ , Hilda thought. She was in the middle of a conversation with this cherry-haired trainer that bought her a few drinks and for once, her mind was temporarily void of thoughts of _him_. The man in front of her is incredibly good-looking, but three hours into their conversation, she just couldn't bring herself to indulge in him. At the back of her mind, she wondered if this guy knew she was a minor and was just being lenient or he's immensely ignorant.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" he asked politely.

"Mmmmaybe I will," she grumbled, fumbling through her pack for that goddamn annoyance of a gadget. 

Seeing the word "Mom" flash on the screen might have wrung her heart ever so slightly. Without another thought, Hilda answered it, and fuck-

"Young lady, are you drinking?" An infuriated tone greeted her from the other side of the line. She could already feel the intoxication evaporating from her system.

Great. Just great. Hilda forgot that the Xtransceiver came with a video call feature, and now her mother is fully aware that her now sixteen year-old was mingling with shady men that bought her drinks in the dead of night.

"Where are you?" The sharpness of her tone didn't leave her voice. 

"Kanto," Hilda mumbled. 

She expected her mother to yell at her without paying any mind to her companion. _Sixteen year olds aren't supposed to drink. I didn't raise you to be this way_ , she'd tell Hilda. However, instead of barking like a Lillipup, her mother asked her, "Have you found him?" with more melancholy than Hilda expected her to have. It's only been two years, but she could clearly see that it looked as if her mother has aged a decade, and that grated at her conscience more than anything.

Softly, "No."

She sighed and pursed her lips. This went on for a while -her mother opening her mouth, as if wanting to say something, but closing it a few moments later. Hilda could feel that her companion was becoming uncomfortable; his boots incessantly tapped the wooden floor of the pub; his eyes darted around and focused on anything but her Xtransceiver's camera; so she's the one who speaks up. 

"I'm losing hope, Mom." 

Hilda couldn't bring herself to feel insulted by the relief on her mother's face. She shifted her gaze, the martini that the cherry-haired trainer bought her suddenly becoming more interesting. Maybe her mother thought that her state of demoralization meant she'd finally come home to her -to Unova. But Hilda's convinced that a part of herself didn't want to go back anymore. Even if she couldn't find him anywhere, it's better than being home, where everything haunted her. Unova is too much of a reminder of what she had lost.

"Are you coming home?"

_I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to._

But when she looked back at the screen, she said, "Yeah."

  

* * *

 

"Did you hear? Team Plasma's back in action again," was what Cheren first tells her when she agreed to meet up with him at a cafe in Nacrene City. (To comment on his current appearance, he certainly looked better than the last time Hilda saw him -his hair grew longer, he ditched his glasses and blue jacket, and wait, is he wearing a tie?)

Hilda gave him a bored look. "Well, if you're looking for someone to stop them, I'm going to have to pass."

He smirked. "Fortunately for you, there's a new trainer that turned up just a few weeks ago. She beat my gym with the grace of a Swanna, and I believe she'll put an end to those freaks once and for all, too."

She raised her eyebrow out of intrigue. "Oh? 

Cheren shrugged. "Lots of stuff happened while you were away, you know."

"Well," she began, as she scanned the cafe's menu. "Care to fill me in?"

 

* * *

 

Her next plan of action was to get her old Pokemon that have been under Professor Juniper's care all this time. Hilda thought that maybe she should have paid a visit to her lab when she first got home, but hey, Cheren could be very demanding sometimes. 

Instead of the professor greeting her with a kind smile upon opening the door to her lab, she's greeted by none other than a screaming Bianca.

"Homygosh! Hilda! You're back!" She wept into her shirt. "I thought you were deaaaad!" 

Strange enough, Hilda missed Bianca's loudness more than she should. She smiled and pulled her into an embrace. "I missed you, too, Bianca."

Bianca sniffled and adjusted her glasses -wait, why does she have glasses? "Did you find him?"

Hilda's heart stopped for a moment. She's only the second person who's asked her if her search bore any results. Cheren probably thought that it wasn't his place to ask, but this was Bianca now, and Bianca always spoke whatever's on her mind. When Hilda averted her gaze, she prayed to whatever gods were out there that Bianca would get the hint, and thankfully, she did. 

"Professor Juniper's waiting for you," she told her with a smile, and this is when Hilda only notices that maybe Bianca didn't just change in the way she dressed.

 

* * *

 

Two years was a long time and Hilda only let that sink in once she stepped out of Professor Juniper's lab. Lots of things changed -from the assignment of gym leaders to the new cities added to the region. She wondered why she was so surprised. She changed a lot over the past two years, so why wouldn't everyone she left behind change, too? 

As she stalked over to her house, lost in thought, she failed to notice the shadow overhead. An Unfezant suddenly landed in front of her, and Hilda almost yelled out in surprise. On board the bird Pokemon was none other than Cheren, himself.

"The hell was that for?" she asked him, a little irked.

The Unfezant crouched down to let his trainer dismount. Cheren proceeded to dust off his clothes before replying. "Bianca told me to head over here for reasons still unknown to me. She didn't want to tell me in our Xtransceivers." 

"Yoohoo!"

The two turned their heads towards the voice that called out, only to see Bianca skipping happily towards them. When she got to where Hilda and Cheren stood, the three of them remained silent for a good while, scrutinizing each other's presences. She realized that this was the first time in two years that they were together.

Surprisingly, Cheren was the first to speak. "Welcome back."

Bianca was the one who pulled the two of them into an embrace, and from the looks of it, she was trying very hard not to cry. Hilda glanced at Cheren, and oh-no he was on the verge of tears, too.

When Hilda got back to Unova, she didn't harbor any semblance of homesickness in her heart at all, but upon seeing her old friends' faces once more, it made her want to hit her head against a wall multiple times. Why had she aimlessly traveled far and wide, leaving everything behind but her Reshiram, just for another glimpse of  _him?_   Why had she traded away the friendships she's cherished since she was a child for a ghost of the past that might never return?

When the door to her house opened, her mother witnessed a sight she hadn't seen in a while: the three children of Nuvema Town crying in each other's arms. 

 

* * *

  

"I'm going to forget about him," Hilda told her mother the next morning.

She looked up at her, while sipping her coffee -her eyes told her that she's very much unconvinced. Without saying anything, she handed Hilda today's paper. Curiously, Hilda proceeded to read the headline that said: Rondez-View Ferris Wheel, Now a Hotspot for Trainer Battles!

Hilda placed the paper down with shaking hands, her eyes demanding her mother for an answer. When she looked up at her daughter, a giggle escaped her lips. 

"Are you sure about that?"

 

* * *

 

 _There's no way he'd be here_ , Hilda thought to herself, as she put on her best set of clothes, styled her hair in a way celebrities would, and even let her mother apply a thin layer of make-up on her face. 

 _There's no way he'd be here_ , she thought again, as she mounted her Braviary and set her course to Nimbasa City.

 _There's no way he'd be here_ , she thought, fidgeting with the sleeves of her sweater as she walked towards the amusement park.

 _There's no way he'd be here_ , she thought, as she waited to spot a fairly tall man with tea green hair.

 _There's no way he'd be her_ e, she thought while she battled it out with her Samurott just to pass the time.

 _There's no way he'd be here_ , she thought, somehow convincing herself a little bit more, as the sun began to bleed into the horizon. 

 _There's no way he'd be here_ , she thought, as she finally had enough, and no more trainers dared to battle her anymore. But just as she was about to get on Braviary's back just so she could finally stop wasting her time...

"This sure takes me back."

 _No. No. Nononononono._ Hilda began panicking. All this time, she looked for him tirelessly, but now that she already gave up on him, he finally showed up? She looked up at the orange sky and mentally cursed at whatever being was up there, ridiculing her. Without thinking, she dove for the bushes, leaving her Braviary perplexed with his trainer's behavior. 

"You! Ride this Ferris wheel with me," Hilda heard his voice again, and for a moment, she thought that he was inviting her, but she reminded herself that she was hiding in the damn bushes. 

"Uh... Sure," another feminine voice replied.

Hilda parted the bushes to grant her some vision, and the sight in front of her nearly made her heart stop.

There he was, looking the way he always did when he left her. But there's something different, now, Hilda thought. Back then, his green eyes always held the curiosity of a child, but now it's as if they had a sense of age-long intelligence. However, his eyes, weren't gazing at Hilda. They were fixed on another girl that seemed to fit Cheren's description of the new trainer that's kicking evil butt in the Unova region. Hilda almost laughed at herself. All these years, she wanted nothing but to see N, but now that her desire was right in front of her, she cowered away from it.

"Oh, what's this? A lost Braviary?" Rosa took notice of her Pokemon. "What're you doing here?"

Braviary cawed, and as she expected, N understood what he just said. 

"Your trainer is in the bushes, you say?" he translated with a confused look. "Is he shy?"

"Caw!"

"Oh, your trainer is a she? My apologies. Take this as a peace offering." N produced a sitrus berry from his pocket and fed it to Braviary, who accepted it gingerly.

"Tell your trainer not to be shy," he told Braviary while petting his head. "She is the last person that I would expect to express some semblance of shyness to me." 

_Shit. He looked this way. He knows I'm here. Shitshitshitshit._

"We'll be going now." Hilda thinks N told this more to her than to her Braviary, and the next thing she knew, he and Rosa have already boarded a capsule.

When Hilda rose from her hiding place, her legs have turned into jelly and her heart was threatening to burst from her ribcage. Her Braviary caught wind of her loss of composure and nuzzled her face. If she was able to talk Pokemon just like N did, she might've translated Braviary's growls of concern as "Are you okay?" And no, she was definitely not okay.

With a forced chuckle, Hilda gazed up to the sky once more. That being up there certainly was cruel.

 

* * *

 

"So, how was your day?" her mother asked when she opened the door to their house. The tone in her voice suggested that she knew _exactly_ what went on.

"Nothing," Hilda mumbled before climbing up the stairs -the weight in her steps was nothing compared to the heaviness in her heart.

 

* * *

 

Bianca called a few times, Cheren even more so. Both of them demanded why she refused to go out of her house all of a sudden. Hilda tried fabricating some lies. ("I had a stomachache." "I caught the flu." "Mom caught the flu, too, so now I'm taking care of her." "I caught the flu again, sorry.") But she knew that her friends weren't complete idiots, so it didn't come as a surprise when they personally paid her a visit. 

"The flu, huh?" Cheren inquired, as a vein popped in his head. 

Hilda leaned against the doorframe and put her hands up in surrender. "You guys got me." 

Bianca pouted. "Hmph. We'll let that slide for now, Hilda."

"Yup," Cheren continued. "The champion wants a word with you."

She craned her head. "Iris?"

"No, not Iris," Cheren told her before stepping aside, revealing a face she may or may not loathe at the moment.

"Hey, Hilda," Rosa greeted with a smile. "I have a message for you."

"Who's it from?" Hilda replied with more venom in her voice than she intended.

She smiled. "Who else?"

 

* * *

 

 _He only got back the same time you did_ , Hilda reminded herself. _He didn't desert you. He didn't lead you to a wild Ducklett chase. He didn't-_

She ended up stomping on the cemented road so hard, she hurt her foot. Hissing, she crouched down in attempt to ease the pain. To add more fuel to the gruelling fire, a passerby bumped into her, causing Hilda to topple over in the crowded Nimbasa street. The jerk didn't even turn around to apologize. She cursed N in her mind. _Why did he have to hang out here on a Friday, when there's so many people?!_

"Am I simply being presumptuous or were you jinxing me in your head?"

Hilda sighed. She could recognize that strange speech pattern anywhere.

"Maybe I am," she told N without turning around to look at him.

For some reason, she could tell he was smiling. "I don't remember you being this... Stingy."

That was it. Hilda put her foot down. 

"Listen to me, Mister I'm-going-to-disappear-from-the-face-of-the-Earth-whenever-the-hell-I-want!" Hilda got up and fisted his shirt, which was a bit of a challenge, since, oh shit, he's way taller than she remembered. But her conviction didn't waver and she stared him dead in the eye, as if seeing his face after two years didn't make her hesitant one bit. 

"You know why I became 'this stingy'? It's because I've spent the last two years searching for you! You didn't even make it easy for me! No note, no clues, no nothing? You just went on and bid me farewell from your castle after confessing your feelings for me, then that's that? Who wouldn't become 'this stingy' after all that, huh, N?"

His expression remained stoic for a few moments before he breaking into a fit of laughter. Hilda missed that sound terribly, but it only served to anger her even more. "W-What's so funny?"

N stared her down, which was fairly easy for someone of his stature. "You want to ride the Ferris wheel with me?"

"Like hell I will!" Hilda immediately let go of N's shirt and stomped away from him. But as she got further away, she found herself heading for the amusement park, as if her feet had a mind of their own. 

When N caught up to her, he grinned and held out his hand.

Again, "You want to ride the Ferris wheel with me?"

 

* * *

 

As she sat opposite from N in the capsule, her mind immediately went back to that night two years ago, when he first revealed his true ties with Team Plasma. He looked so eerily the same even if two years have already passed. If Hilda allowed herself to be a little delusional, it'll seem like this was the very same night. Oddly, she still remembered it in detail. N spoke of his love for Ferris wheels, how he wondered how many Pokemon the world had to offer, how he lived under the pretense that freeing all Pokemon from their trainers would bring about peace to everyone-

"I love Ferris wheels," N shattered her train of thought. "The circular motion… The-"

"Don't even think about giving me that speech all over again, N," she told him off. "T-That's not fair."

He gazed at her with thinly veiled confusion. "What makes it unfair?"

Her throat was aching from sheer frustration and she's willing herself not to cry in front of him. Didn't he get it? She scoured the world just for him, but to no avail. And now he's going to pretend like the past two years didn't happen at all? Suddenly, Ghetsis' voice rang in her head. 

_The freak without a human heart._

A selfish part of her allowed herself to think about N that way. He may be one of the most compassionate people she's met in a lifetime, but for the most part, it's as if that compassion is reserved for Pokemon. That realization made the dam break, and the next thing Hilda knew, she's burying her face in her hands as the tears stung her eyes. 

"Hilda."

She didn't look up.

"Hilda."

She considered looking up for a millionth of a second, but she still didn't.

Hilda expected him to call her name one more time, but silence suddenly encompassed the two of them. She looked up to see N gazing out into the Nimbasa skyline with wonder. She felt that she should feel offended that his attention was immediately robbed away from her, but she couldn't bring herself to be mad at his wonder. "I missed this region," he murmured.

When their capsule proceeded to move to the bottom again, N switched his seat so that he was sitting right next to her. Their closeness made Hilda more than a little flustered, and it did not help at all when N decided to place both of his hands on her shoulders.

"I love Ferris wheels. The circular motion… The mechanics… They're like collections of elegant formulas," he turned to look at her, and all those years of searching suddenly melted away when his lips turned up into a grin. "Maybe I've always known they'd lead me back to you."

She thought she'd burst into a fit of sobs right there, but somehow, she found it in herself to lean in and-

 _His lips are so_ soft, is the first thought that came into her mind, as she tangled her fingers into his hair. She could almost feel N's shock through the skin of his lips, but when he didn't make a move to push her away, Hilda closed her eyes and -fuck it- pressed herself against him. Eventually, N's hands began to wander to her waist, and this may have tickled her a little, but she's too busy moving her mouth against his to pay it any mind. Without warning, she could feel N's tongue licking at her bottom lip, and she was more than willing to let him lick into her mouth. They said that every person tasted like something when you kissed them, but N didn't taste like anything in particular. For some reason, Hilda really liked it.

After what felt like hours of kissing, N pulled away, very red in the face and breathless. Despite this, he smiled at her.

"I've learned many things for the past two years," he began. "However, the art of kissing is still a mystery to me."

Hilda wrapped her arms around his neck. "We've got all the time in the world now that we're both here, do we not?"

"Certainly," he told her before leaning in.

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAHHHH I love N so much okay he's easily one of my favorite Pokemon characters. Guzma earns the title of my best boy only BY A HAIR from this baby. I love him to bits I cant explain how much I do :'( PLUS i jst found out very recently that hiroshi kamiya, aka one of my favorite seiyuus, voiced N in the B2W2 trailer. now i wish they replaced the whole pokemon anime with in-game adaptations instead hmph. AND HONESTLY the fifth generation is my favorite gen because the storylines have gone so deep especially in B2W2. I loved the memory link bit even more so since it showed what kind of things everyone went through first before everyone changed two years later. Im particularly fascinated with the triplets' story upon losing to the Shadow Triad and *FEELS* 
> 
> Anyways, yes, it's been YEARS since gen five came out but it'll always hold a special place in my heart. I hope you enjoyed this piece! Comments, kudos, and anything of the like are greatly appreciated~


End file.
